In recent years, the concept of the 'Thucydides Trap' has become one of the most popular frameworks for explaining tensions between the US and China. Politicians, diplomats, and analysts frequently invoke the term, which occasionally surfaces even in negotiations at the level of world leaders.
Specifically, Chinese President Xi Jinping raised the question during a meeting with US President Donald Trump in Beijing: whether China and the United States can overcome the 'Thucydides Trap' and create a new paradigm for relations between major powers.
However, this concept is often interpreted in a simplified manner — as the 'inevitability of war' between a great power and its rising rival. In reality, the situation is far more complex.
The ancient Greek historian Thucydides lived in the 5th century BCE and is considered one of the founders of the realist school in political history and international relations. His main work, 'History of the Peloponnesian War,' is dedicated to the war between Athens and Sparta, which lasted nearly three decades.
Thucydides sought to explain politics not by the will of the gods or moral criteria, but by the interests of states, the balance of power, fear, and the struggle for spheres of influence. The key phrase that became the basis for the 'Thucydides Trap' concept two and a half millennia later is: 'The rise of Athenian power and the fear it caused in Sparta made war inevitable.'
However, it is important to understand that Thucydides himself did not create any 'trap.' He merely attempted to explain the causes of a specific war — the Peloponnesian War.
The term 'Thucydides Trap' was introduced by American political scientist, Harvard professor, and former Pentagon official Graham Allison. He gained widespread recognition in the 1970s for his research on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Allison detailed this concept in his book 'Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?' at a time when US-China relations were increasingly described as a struggle for global leadership. Allison did not discover an ancient universal theory applied to many historical conflicts. Rather, this concept was formulated specifically to analyze US-China relations. Only afterward did Allison and his team begin searching for historical analogies.
According to Allison's interpretation, the 'Thucydides Trap' is a situation where the core meaning is not that the 'rising power' necessarily wants war, nor that the old leading power inevitably seeks to maintain its position by force. Allison's main idea is the systemic tension that arises when the global balance of power shifts.
According to his logic, the danger is created not only by China's ambitions but also by the US reaction to losing its relative superiority. This is precisely why the concept quickly gained popularity during an era of trade wars, technological restrictions, and the struggle for influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Allison and his research team examined 16 historical cases over the past approximately 500 years where one power challenged another. According to their assessment, in 12 cases the confrontation ended in war, while in 4 cases war was avoided.
Among the examples considered: At the same time, Allison emphasized that history does not automatically 'doom' states to conflict. Rather, it shows how dangerous periods of leadership transition can be.
One of the main objections is the oversimplification of history. Critics argue that wars arise from so many factors that they cannot be explained by a single structural scheme. For example, World War I, which proponents of the concept often cite as an example of the 'Thucydides Trap,' is explained by historians not only by Germany's rise but also by alliance systems, nationalism, Balkan crises, and mistakes by political elites.
One of the most prominent critics of this concept, American political scientist Joseph Nye, argues that US-China rivalry more closely resembles the 'Kindleberger Trap' (named after American economist Charles Kindleberger). This is a situation where the world system becomes unstable not due to direct state rivalry, but due to a lack of global leadership.
Another critic, political scientist Steve Chan, in his article 'More Than One Trap: Problematic Interpretations and Overlooked Lessons from Thucydides,' writes that Allison used historical analogies too freely and selected examples to fit a predetermined scheme.
Critics also point out that the modern world is vastly different from ancient Greece: Nevertheless, the term continues to live in modern politics: it serves more as a warning that if states fail to recognize the dangers of such transitional periods, the likelihood of conflict increases significantly, rather than proving the inevitability of war.
However, history also knows examples to the contrary — cases where great powers avoided war through mutual compromises, diplomatic mechanisms, and adaptation to new realities.
Source: www.gazeta.uz